To The Mother Who Has Experienced Loss and Grief

I’ve been sitting with so many women lately whose mothers’ hearts have been absolutely shattered by loss. I don't write this lightly. I write it because I want you to know you are not alone. Motherhood, in general, can feel like a very lonely place. When you add grief, frustration, and tragedy to the mix, it feels akin to being alive, but not breathing.

For the mama who has lost your sweet baby before you ever even got to hold their tiny hand, before you discovered the color of their eyes or heard the sound of their first cry...

For the mama who carried that sacred soul to term, only to find that you will never bring them home to the nursery you lovingly curated for them, never getting to nurse them or rock them to sleep...

For the mama who has done everything to care for the needs of your precious baby, only to have them released back to Heaven far too early...

To the mama who is a mother in your heart, but not in your body...

You have prayed, been broken, cried oceans of tears, and felt the exhaustion, heaviness, and perhaps even guilt of what you have endured. You have many questions, and unfortunately, I do not have answers. I don't think we will on this side of Heaven. I know this is a hard and holy road you are walking on, even when it feels more like a hard and hated one.

This is the kind of journey where words often fail, and presence speaks louder than anything. The kind where you realize that no human comfort can reach certain depths—but Jesus can.

Each time one of our adoptions did not come to fruition, I felt the profound loss—the kind of loss for which there is no just language. A depth of pain that I hadn't known was possible.

Again? But I was so sure.

How God?

Why would you allow this?

This is grief of the highest potency.

I want to share something I was reminded of in my darkest hours. The times I spent in a ball on the bathroom floor; the times I was soaked not only in the hot water showering down on me, but by my own tears... Isaiah 53, the prophecy of our Savior:"He was despised and rejected—a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief...Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down." (Isaiah 53:3–4 NLT)

He knows.Not just in theory, but in experience. He carried sorrow. He is near to the brokenhearted. He weeps with us.

This isn’t a verse as a bandaid. This is a truth I’ve lived through. My mother’s heart has been broken by loss too—deep, aching, breath-stealing loss. And I’ve learned this: Jesus doesn’t change. He is good. He can be trusted with your tears. He still does miracles—even through mourning.

I love the story of Lazarus in the Bible. Jesus knew all along that He would raise Lazarus from the dead. And yet, when he saw the grief and mourning of Mary and Martha, he wept. Your pain moves him. He meets you in it He weeps with you.

When I took this photo, I didn’t know how significant it would become. It’s in front of a mural of a black butterfly. My name (Vanessa) means butterfly, and I’ve always loved the reminder that transformation often comes through darkness.

I've often wondered if the caterpillar knows the endgame. Does it know what awaits it on the other side of the chrysalis? Does it fear within the blackness in which it is enshrouded? Or does it embrace the dark, confident that it is becoming something more intricately beautiful than it could imagine?

I don’t think I’m the bright, colorful type of butterfly. I think I’m more like this butterfly—marked by grief, but also transformed by it into something new, something I didn't see coming, but that God will use for glory.

You may not see it now, but something beautiful is forming in the dark. You are not alone. You are not forgotten. You don't have to pretend it doesn't hurt. You don't have to smile and say you're "good" and "fine." You're not. But you will be.

You will always carry their little souls with you. That's what mothers do. We are carriers. And one day, on the other side of eternity, when you walk into the gates, you will hear an excited, pure, sweet voice call out, "Mommy! I've been waiting for you!"